BCCI will help Australia to set-up T20 league: Modi

Jaipur, Sep 26 (IANS) The Indian cricket board will help its Australian counterpart implement its own world Twenty20 tournament next year, said the board’s vice-president and Indian Premier League (IPL) commissioner Lalit Modi.Modi speaking to Australian media revealed that Cricket Australia (CA) could soon have domestic Twenty20 competitions in the mould of the major soccer leagues.

CA wants to beef up its domestic Twenty20 competition and hold a glittering tournament featuring the world’s best in 2009-10.

Modi said he was keeping a close watch on CA’s plans and would assist in any way possible to ensure its IPL clone was a success.

“We are very excited they are doing that,” Modi said. “We understand they are looking at a franchise model, developing other models, too.

“We are keenly watching that and are most supportive of that. The Australian cricket board has been most supportive of the Indian cricket board. They have asked us already if we would release our players for that and we said yes,” he said adding that the board has cleared players like Sachin Tendulkar, Harbhajan Singh and Mahendra Singh Dhoni to play for Australian state teams if they wanted to.

Modi is hopeful that such IPL format can be conceptualised in other cricketing nations.

“I think if you look at the soccer leagues around the world, you have the English Premier League, you have the Bundesliga in Germany, the Italian, the Spanish leagues. You have rugby going on in various countries.

“I think each country will develop talent. It may not be on the same scale as the IPL. It may not be eight, 10 or 12 teams, but it may be six teams in Australia.”

But Modi said CA would never share in the financial spoils of the IPL.

“It’s a domestic tournament. When county cricket (in England) was going well for hundreds of years, we never got the spoils.

“You have to understand, Indian cricket never made money until three or four years ago. It was always England first, Australia second, South Africa third and then India would get a little bit of money. Our market has developed, our game has developed,” he said.